Just wanted to spread this far and wide. This week’s cover story in the Village Voice is about the link between 9/11 and blood cancers, especially Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

That’s what I just recovered from. My exposure to Ground Zero was not as intimate as the 75 recovery workers who now have some form of blood cancer, but I did run after the first plane hit, lived less than a mile from the site, and worked a block away for six months while the pit was still burning.

Lots of feelings about this. About the EPA that lied to us, boldly and blatantly, about believing them, lots of things. It’s affirming though, to very nearly confirm what I had long suspected. And to know that sadly, I’m not alone.

Valerie Reiss

Valerie Reiss is Holistic Living Editor at Beliefnet. She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.